Looking at the Morning Consult state-by-state poll numbers, there are a few interesting things to observe from the perspective of the Electoral College. Here are some of them:
Trump has a lower approval number in Michigan (a state he won by 10,000 votes) than he does in Colorado (which he lost by 136,000).
He’s polling worse in Arizona (+91,000) than he is in Pennsylvania (-44,000).
The results in Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Virginia are all about the same, despite the wide variance in the results in those states last November. Iowa is the outlier here, since Trump won the state decisively.
While he’s still net positive, he’s below 50% approval in Missouri, Montana, Indiana, Nebraska, Georgia and Florida.
His five best states are Wyoming, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, in that order.
The six states with the closest approval/disapproval numbers are Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia. It’s hard to see much distinction between them, but he’s near parity in the three formerly Confederate states. He’s barely negative in North Carolina and barely positive in Georgia and Florida.
There’s nothing too surprising in the results, but if I were Trump I would be concerned about why Iowa doesn’t look better, and also about the prospect that Arizona might be slipping into the blue camp. Other than that, I’d worry that Georgia could be headed to true toss-up territory since it looks just like Florida. And Florida is so close that an influx of a hundred thousand justifiably angry Puerto Rican refugees might tip the balance to the Democrats. Finally, he needs to take a close look at Michigan and Wisconsin because they are seeing a little more slippage than Ohio or Pennsylvania.
These numbers are all from September which was, on the whole, a decent month for Trump that saw some uptick in many of his poll results. That’s why I’m less interested in the absolute numbers than in how the states compare to each other and differ from what we’d anticipate considering the election results. While I’ve identified a few states where Trump’s approval looks lower (relative to other states) than I’d expect, what I didn’t find were places where his approval is inexplicably higher. I guess the closest I can come to that is South Carolina, where he’s doing better than he is in Kansas and Nebraska. I have no real explanation for that, but it might help explain why Lindsey Graham went golfing with Trump yesterday.
Who knew people could be so upset about not getting a wall?
This may be the case, but I’m not sure it matters all that much. Trump appears to have a very rabid, nutty, tenacious base, who’ll support him until the end of time and beyond no matter what he does or what’s proven about any possible current or past criminal behaviors or what have you.
Anecdotal but very recent encounter with 2 Trump fans on an airplane. I admit I was eavesdropping and refrained from saying much due to being in a confined environment, plus, as you shall see, they were beyond “reasoning.”
Both were fairly upper middle class women, just off an expensive vacay in sunny Southern CA. One woman returning to a small N. CA town and the other returning to her home in Kansas City.
Woman 1: Obama was the WORST POTUS on record. I couldn’t believe he said on TV that he was cutting off certain levels of medical care, like needed surgeries or cancer treatments, to ANYone over 67. Obama wanted Seniors to DIE, so that he could “steal” their social security (this is almost verbatim).
Woman 2: Yes!!! When Obama was POTUS, it was the worst 8 years of my life!. He was an awful POTUS, a liar and a crook, and he wanted to kill Republicans, especially Seniors. (almost verbatim)
Some argle-bargle ensues about the horrors of Obama years with no other examples, except for the ridiculous and totally not true “Death Panels” bunk.
Then:
Woman 1: I LOVE Donald Trump!
Woman 2: Oh YES!! Trump is SO SMART and such a good business man.
W1: Yes! He’s the BEST! And he has done So. Much. Good. for our country. Trump has accomplished MORE in his short 8 months in office to make great improvements in our lives than ANY OTHER POTUS has during their entire time in office!! (again: almost verbatim).
W2: I completely agree. He’s accomplished so much, and already things are so much better.
W1: And I LOVE his family. His family is so wonderful. His children are just amazing and Work. So. Hard. And have Done. So. Much.
W2: I agree! I don’t care that he’s been married three times. ALL three of his wives are just wonderful. And I also agree that his children do a great job. We are so lucky to have them working for us!
I’ll stop now before you all derp. These women both talked about Faceborg a lot, so no guesses as to where they’re imbibing their KoolAid, although no doubt they are faithful Fox/Rush addicts.
I did want say: “other than Judge Gorsuch, WTF has Trump DONE?????” But I didn’t want to go there.
They did whine a lot about Congress and how bought off they are. They were VERY CLEAR about that, but of course, Trump and his fabulous kids and wives are, I suppose, “above” all that and have some deep seated sense of civic duty or something. Of course, Democrats are waaaaaay more horrid that Republicans. Goes without saying.
Some of you may be aware that we are experiencing an unprecedented amount of destructive wild fires in CA right now (which Sainted Savior Trump has chosen to ignore). Woman 2 actually offered me this tidbit of extra super duper KKKrazyTown ‘splainer for why these wild fires are happening (R U ready for this one??):
It’s the gubmint’s fault, stupid!! Yeah, no kidding. Our Fed Gubmint, ESPECIALLY the demon democraps, have HIRED people (apparently all over the country) to start wild fires. Why, may you ask??
Well because: it’s totally OBVIOUS, libtard! It’s because the Democraps are all in favor of “conservatism and economical” (she MEANT conservation and ecological) stuff, and “they” want everyone to move away from ALL rural areas to the big cities. So they are paying arsonists (maybe there’s a database of their names???) to set wildfires around the country to drive good country folk to live in the cities.
And there you have it, folks.
Do I think nutty nutcases like these women will ever forsake their wonderful Sainted Savior Trump, no matter what he does???? Nah. Nuh gunna happen.
Oh, and btw they also whined on & on about Harvey Weinstein and how Democrats NEVER EVER have any repercussions for ANY of their wrong-doings. ONLY Republicans have to have consequences.
These people are fully insane. I see no way of reaching them.
Yeah, that level of ignorant nutty is beyond hope. They are living in an alternate universe that they will inhabit for the rest of their dying days.
On the upside, at least they aren’t blaming Obama for the wildfires. That’s progress.
at least they aren’t blaming Obama for the wildfires
Or Hillary.
But I bet they blame Soros.
This is so upsetting and depressing.
I’ve been 3 fb pages that are dealing with the Sonoma wildfires and the commentary from the right about how fast Trump approved the Emergency request and ‘just like all the other requests, he’s jumped right on it’ was depressing. That he hasn’t approved (or disapproved) the individual side of the request will be the real kicker.
Yes, there is an element that just will never get it, that will never bother to see anything but their fantasy. That they all seem to have gone back to their caves now that Rep are in charge and haven’t read a lick of real news is their reality.
But for the other 30% that voted for him and are paying attention now is the time to keep those windows and doors open to reality. Poll numbers dropping means someone is paying attention.
Three term New York Governor Elliot Spitzer and House Minority Leader Anthony Weiner agree with them that the era of Democrats getting away with sexual improprieties has gone too far.
You must be a troll, otherwise you’d know that Spitzer was only gov for 14 months and Anthony Weiner never replaced Nancy Pelosi.
Your sarcasm detector must be on the fritz today.
Comes from too many years of fighting off trolls.
I think the Democrats need to bring out the Goldwater/daisy ad and run it everyday so that trump voters know that they voted for nuclear war and the consequences are on them.
That’s a nice idea, but most American voters don’t do introspection and, I think, would just entrench themselves if they were told that they bore responsibility for Trump. You can say that he failed to live up to his promises, etc. but any hint that the voters themselves are to blame won’t be useful, even if, as is the case here, it’s true.
I just hope Democrats dont spend 2018 assuming that disapproval of Trump equates to disapproval of Republicans. It might depress R turnout but then again those who disapprove of Trump because he is a buffoon or because he was incompetent in accomplishing his idiotic plans may still vote for their R representative.
And hopefully they have learned that they still need to nominate a remotely decent candidate in 2020.
Yep. I’m glad the survey that Booman is writing about is of registered voters, so it is at least meaningful. Its too early to survey likely voters in any place that isn’t having an election this fall. The Dems need to spend the next year getting their voters whipped up enough to start planning to vote, though. Plus find a bunch of unregistered voters to decide to participate for a change. My guess is that a survey of habitual voters-those who showed up in 2006, 08, 10, 12, 14, 16 would still show a tremendous advantage to the GOP. The results of 2006 wave election were made possible by mobilizing a ton of people who have since not participated in other off-year elections. If they still stay home, there isn’t much chance that the statehouses and governorship will flip no matter how disappointed voters claim to be about Trump.
Those voters were supposed to be appalled by the government shutdown and reinvigorate our chances in 2014…but they never came back then. I’m not certain they will come back even if Trump starts spitting on soldiers and slapping babies.
Of COURSE it’s going to “depress GOP turnout.” Trump’s hold on the GOP base means when they have to blame somebody they blame Congress for “betraying Trump” rather than Trump for being a moron. That helps Trump in 2020 because 40% of the voting public simply aren’t listening to anything negative about Trump no matter what he does or doesn’t do.
But this does not make them more likely to turn out in 2018 and support the GOP Congress. That’s why Republican Congressmen are so depressed. Their President does NOT have their backs, unlike Obama. Trump sets them up for failure with his stupidity. Then they fail. Then he blames them. Then the GOP base turns on them and blames them. And they’re helpless because they can’t turn the blame back onto Trump since their base is loyal to Trump and in any dispute between Trump and anybody else in the GOP, Trump will win.
So, they’re caught. Trump isn’t helping them wrack up victories they need to stay in office and is undermining them at every turn. Only, they can’t fight back and call him out on his destructive behaviour because that will only make them wind up like Jeff Flake, despised by the left, abandoned and scorned by the Right and facing a primary challenger who will focus on how “disloyal” Flake is to Trump.
They simply have to be swept out of power before anything good can happen for America. They are NOT going to exercise responsibility and do anything about our national crisis because they wouldn’t get anything out of doing so. And they all see the hysterical reaction meted out to Bob Corker when he (suddenly) starts telling the truth about Trump. “Resign! Traitor!” etc.
This is zero incentive for them to get in front of the juggernaut.
Spot on!
Referring to the conversation I discussed, above, between two Trump fanatical fans … they were discussing EXACTLY how BAD Congress is – which is true – but only insofar as to how the R-Team has been so “disloyal” to Trump, and how they’re not immediately enacting all of Trump’s “wonderful programs.” And it’s all the fault of the pols in Congress, and has nothing to do with Trump.
It’s quite the spectacle. But I’ve also heard similar gumpf from my Alabamistan relatives, who are faithful Fox/Rush viewers/listeners. If anything is “wrong,” it’s not Trump’s fault. My relatives HATE and despise Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but not for the same reason that I do.
Quite the conundrum.
The famous South Carolina politician and jurist, James Petigru said it best when the state seceded from the Union: “South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.”
One more time, with feeling:
The plan has never been to allow free or fair elections in 2018 or 2020. There will be disruptions, black swan events and outright interference.
Georgia was probably hacked last time and nobody has done or will do squat. They have no way to audit their votes beyond digital results and they won’t allow anyone to look into the black boxes.
North Carolina is the one of the most gerrymandered states in the country.
Wisconsin is gerrymandered too and subject to wildly restrictive voter ID law.
No one in the NY Times or Washington Post or CNN or NBC or ABC or anything will go anywhere near this because they’re all too scared to cause widespread unrest.
The White House and the Republican Party don’t care about polls. They’ve been setting it up for years so they don’t have to.
You would think I’d have to change my signature line, but give it a few years. The real chaos is still over the horizon. People just don’t have good enough imagination or knowledge of history to see it coming.
Self-fulfilling prophecy. Doom and gloom = low turnout on the D side. Luckily it’s nonsense. The road is steeper because of gerrymandering and voter suppression but the Republican majority won’t survive a wave election. which looks more likely all the time.
Hey, sounds good to me. I’m always down to GOTV. Let’s see how the dance goes.